Poor Mitt. He just doesn’t know how to let go, and it’s coming back to haunt him.

I had a friend in college with a pronoun problem. When speaking of a project that needed to happen next weekend, he would use the plural. “Peterr, we need to . . .” he’d say to me, perhaps talking about fixing up the apartment in some way. That’s fine, and we’d do it — he had the money, and I could build and fix stuff, so it worked out well. But then after the project was done, on Monday he’d be talking to someone and his pronoun problem would emerge: “Look what I did . . .” Future tense things are in the plural, but past tense things are in the singular.

There came a day when he bragged on one of “his” projects to his girlfriend, and she chuckled. “What?” he said to her. She looked at the project, then at me, then at him, and replied “Dude, I’ve seen your carpentry skills. You can hold a board for someone else to cut, but there’s no way in hell you did this project by yourself. Someone did a nice job here, but I don’t think it was you all by yourself.”

Interviews with a half-dozen of Romney’s former partners and associates, as well as public records, show that he was not merely an absentee owner during this period. He signed dozens of company documents, including filings with regulators on a vast array of Bain’s investment entities. And he drove the complex negotiations over his own large severance package, a deal that was critical to the firm’s future without him, according to his former associates.

Indeed, by remaining CEO and sole shareholder, Romney held on to his leverage in the talks that resulted in his generous 10-year retirement package, according to former associates.

“The elephant in the room was not whether Mitt was involved in investment decisions but Mitt’s retention of control of the firm and therefore his ability to extract a huge economic benefit by delaying his giving up of that control,” said one former associate, who, like some other Romney associates, spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the company.

That’s a mighty big elephant, all right. Clearly, Mitt did well in negotiating with himself over his severance package, and walked away whistling. His old business associates, on the other hand, seem less pleased — and now some of them are willing to talk.

Spoiler alert: they’re not saying nice things.

Another little episode probably didn’t endear Mitt to his now-former Bain colleagues who ran the show while Mitt was off doing his Olympic thing: “He initially kept his corner office at the firm’s Copley Square headquarters, which was eventually turned into a conference room. . . .” Even when he figured out he wasn’t coming back, he wouldn’t let the de facto CEO have the corner office? Mitt sounds like a teenager who goes away to college and DEMANDS that his/her room at home be left absolutely untouched. “No turning my room into a guest room or a craft room or inviting grandma to live in it. It’s mine, mine, mine forever!”

But that’s not the worst part of this story for Romney.

The worst part is from hits like this: “At least one partner worried that, in losing the founder — one who excelled at bringing in investors, not at finding the companies to invest in and overhaul — Bain might have trouble attracting money to its funds.”

Think about that for a minute. Bain’s biggest worry wasn’t that they’d lose their expertise in investing and overhauling companies; it was that they’d lose their supply of investors. Mitt could bring in the money; could they do the same? When you think about Mitt’s work for the Olympics, that’s clearly what they wanted him to do: raise money for us. And, to his credit, he did. He got private money and government money and got both in boatloads.

But that was then. Fast forward to the campaign trail now, and you get a very different picture of Mitt at work. If you listen to Mitt on the stump, he tells you that he is a guy who knows where to invest and how to spend money wisely, and his Bain record proves it.

Except, of course, to the Bain folks who know Mitt’s principal skill to be fundraising, not actually investing and overhauling companies. The more Mitt talks about his mad investing skilz and his record at turning around failing companies, the more irritated the lesser Bain MOTUs might become.

Did I say “might become”? Make that “are becoming.” No need for the subjunctive here . . .

Mitt may have gotten a fat final pay check as he left Bain (whenever that officially happened), but his work there is still paying him dividends. Or, as his old pals may be calling it, a bit of payback.

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photo h/t to _Tar0_. It is unknown as to whether this sign is on Romney’s desk at Bain, his desk in his bedroom as a teen, or someone else’s desk entirely.

19 Responses
to “Romney’s Latest Pay Day as Bain CEO Was Yesterday”

I think that it has been amply proven that romney is a liar and probably shorting on his taxes as he hides his money offshore. OTH, he is not the one who was so involved in seeing that the ndaa got passed in its final form, nor set up the right of the pres to kill whomever he wants after “due deliberation” with himself. Both candidates of the uniparty are reprehensible and, I believe, equally evil. Therefore, I can’t vote for either.

Oh, and remember how the Cons reamed out Clinton for pardoning Marc Rich who had had dealings with the Iranian mullahs WRT oil? Guess what — Cheney’s Halliburton was dealing with the mullahs as late as 2000 (and probably still are):

Because that’s a forbidden topic in the US press, just like Halliburton’s shell-company illegal dealings with Iran. They report on it just often enough to claim semi-honestly that they’ve covered it, though never with the same sort of obsessive focus brought to, say, coverage of John Edwards’ mistress’ bowel movements.

OTOH, the pols have gotten so in your face about their reprehensible activity, I’m half serious.

What do you suppose R’s voters/donors would do if he just admitted he still gets dough from Bain? Would they not vote for him? Not donate to him? I half think it wouldn’t make a bit of diff to most of them.

The worst part is from hits like this: “At least one partner worried that, in losing the founder — one who excelled at bringing in investors, not at finding the companies to invest in and overhaul — Bain might have trouble attracting money to its funds.”

My bold so Mitt’s skill is finding other Crony Capitalist Fatcats to invest not in finding companies to invest in and overhaul.
Note no mention at all of Mitt having ideas to overhaul companies and fix them not that Bain did much of that.
But Mitt is claiming he can fix America like Bain fixed companies and got them running again.
But Mitt has no expertise at all he is just like you bad carpenter friend who takes all the credit. Just how did your friend end up in life people like him and Mitt are never trusted much sure they are very friendly but as a close friend after awhile you do want to flee.

Americans had the opportunity to nominate someone honest for the Republican bid (Democrats had no such opportunity, or they squandered it, but chose instead to have a run-of-the-mill corrupt scoundrel. That’s just who Americans prefer.

The author of this article seems to be mistaken about this impact this is going to have on the election. Net net I think this is a huge plus for the Romney bid. Besides that, between a choice of a known criminal a potential one, I think it’s slightly better to go with the one who still only has the potential anyway.

“Bain’s biggest worry wasn’t that they’d lose their expertise in investing and overhauling companies; it was that they’d lose their supply of investors.”

And isn’t that just what he is doing for the republican party. Campaign millions to the media and force democrats to pay those same right leaning media moguls. I be Republicans don’t really want to win-they just want to rake in the money for fighting as long as possible. Not too different than the war in Iraq.

Because the media is not doing it’s job, they let Romney snake his way out of the original accusation by saying he had left the firm before they decided to do outsourcing.

If they were acting more like Will McAvoy of “Newsroom”, they might have said – does your signing of dividend checks from Bain sufficiently show you approve of the outsourcing that was done after you left?

Question primarily for Peterr, but also for anyone: I keep hearing, reading that Mitt’s “partners” (as if Bain were a partnership) kept complaining about Mitt continuing as “the sole shareholder” (as if Bain were a corporation).

Clarification, please, anyone. To avoid the legal technicalities of partnership v corporation in the question, how could Mitt be “the sole shareholder” while simultaneously having partners?